How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?
by seriousblahblah
Summary: Sometimes goodbye is just the beginning. Sirmione mini novel. Post war.
1. Chapter 1

[prompt: Write a drabble about your OTP saying goodbye for the last time]

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 _ **1\. Goodbye**_

 _ **Goodbye is just the beginning**_

 _ **.**_

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"Well I guess this is goodbye then..."

"Yeah I guess it is." Her lips managed to pull up at the corners despite the tremendous pain and sadness she felt, and the certainty that loomed over her that as soon as he was gone, she would break down into a blubbering mess.

"We had a good run," he said quietly.

"Yeah we did. We...I'll always remember you," she croaked and finally broke down into tears.

He pulled her into a warm embrace and stroked her hair. "Oh I'm so sorry Hermione, I never wanted to leave...I just don't think I'd be doing the right thing by staying."

"I understand."

It didn't stop her tears from falling though.

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This a short novel about the Sirmione relationship after the war, where Hermione is an adult and Sirius returned from the veil. It tries to be realistic about the problems they'd face. I also write James/Hermione and Regulus/Hermione in my other stories if you want to check it out!


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks to sereniterose for reviewing, you're a cookie! :-) Also to anyone who reads my other stories, yes I will be updating them.

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 **2.** _ **Wrongness**_

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 ** _Twelve Hours Earlier..._**

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"We just can't be together, I'm sorry Hermione," Sirius sighed and pushed his long hair back out of his eyes.

Hermione tried her best to not get angry at him though everything that he was saying was making her more and more tempted to scream at the handsome animagus.

Instead she said, "Are you just saying that because of the age difference, or because you can't actually stand me?"

"Hermione, please," he begged and wrangled his hands together. "Don't even think that, you know how I adore you. Don't make this harder than it already is for me."

"No, you're right Sirius," she said unsteadily, voice wobbling. "It's probably asking too much that a forty year old could fall in love with a twenty year old," she snapped and stormed out of the room before he could see her cry.

And yet she'd hoped for it so much. For so long.

Wasn't she old enough now? She was twenty years old, for crying out loud. She could drink, she could drive a car, she could make choices...but she couldn't choose who she loved?

She hid her face in her hands as she made her way back to her room.

What a fool she was, thinking that Sirius Black, of all people, could love her.

At any age. He clearly did not want her.

 _What was she thinking?_ She pulled at her hair in humiliation and began to shake to not cry.

.

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Dare: Write about your OTP realizing they're all wrong for each other


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Thanks to each person that reviewed :) This chapter is a bit of a mess so sorry if it doesn't make sense. but this does continue from the last chapter, but the timeline is going in reverse order...anyways it will all make sense by the end. at least hopefully...**

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 _ **3\. Temper**_

 _ **Two days before...**_

 _ **.**_

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"Remus I don't know what to do." He wrangled a hand through his hair. "I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't!"

Remus muttered something like _'how did he get himself into this mess'_ again under his breathe.

"You're not helping Mooney," Sirius reiterated when the tired werewolf said nothing.

Finally, Remus looked frankly at him and his amber eyes were startling in their livid raw anger. As if he were just looking for a reason to lose his temper.

"Sirius what exactly did you do with that girl?"

The black-haired man paused to think over what had happened between him and Hermione. "Nothing..." Merlin, that wasn't strictly true either. There'd been some confessions and touching. "Everything," he suddenly declared incriminately.

Remus rose up from his chair. "If you did something to her I swear, even if you're my friend—"

Sirius held up his hands. "Calm down." He bit at his thumb. "I didn't mean it like that." He scowled. "Do you really think I'm so depraved?"

Remus sat back down. "I don't know, you were in Azkaban..."

 _Fuck off._ Sirius ignored the snide comment before he exploded. He couldn't talk about that place.

"It was nothing like that," he said with a note of finality, edging towards the fireplace. He bit his thumb again, tasting the salt, remembering her. "We kissed and danced and things got a little too far. But that was it, she kissed me." She then straddled and practically threw herself at him, until he'd stopped it before she could undo his last button.

The werewolf laughed humourlessly.

"What?"

Lupin sighed and crossed his legs. "Then why are you overreacting?"

"I'm not."

He raised a brow.

"Am I?"

"You made me think something much worse had happened." Remus smiled tiredly, with a bit too familiarity. His eyes fired on the building embers fireplace "Now, you can both move on."

"Right. Yes." Sirius nodded. He would move on. Let her go. She was too young and healthy for him; he had too many problems. He was too damaged for someone like her.

But his voice sounded more sure than he felt.

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[prompt: song 'Caught in the symmetry' - Mew]


	4. Chapter 4

thanks to everyone who reviewed here is the next part! :)

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 ** _4\. I can feel it's right_**

 ** _12 hours before..._**

 _._

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Hermione didn't want to scare him off but the pace at which they were going was too slow and agonizing.

He was holding off from her. _She could feel it._

"Why doesn't he just let go?"

Hermione chewed her lip, thinking over how they had danced around each other all night and yet, though he tried to hide it, his grey eyes were on hers the whole time.

When she danced with Victor, he looked like he wanted to stroll over to the Bulgarian and knock his lights out. And yet he hadn't, he'd been the perfect gentleman.

Too perfect.

And it was she, not even Harry, who finally made him dance with her. He'd hesitated, even when Harry asked him to dance with her.

Harry, in an odd way, had sort of wanted it.

"Can't my best friend dance with my godfather?" Harry had scolded Sirius, his brows raised. While Sirius looked terribly ashamed and kept his eyes at a distant point in the room. Her own heart beat was thumping erratically and she felt trapped between Harry's expectations and Sirius's avoidance. Her breath came out in short erratic breaths because she was so nervous, terrified of the truth.

Of course, Harry had no idea. No idea of what she felt about Sirius. The inappropriate thoughts she had whenever he walked into a room and sometimes when he was far away, of how she was till thinking of his godfather. And she'd almost felt guilty about it, about trying to take something that was Harry's and what was supposed to be only Harry's...if it didn't make her so fulfilled in a way she couldn't even begin to describe or explore. That she'd probably never get to explore, because Sirius didn't belong to her. He belonged to Harry, he was the only family he had as an orphan.

Though once she felt Sirius slip his arms down her back and around her waist, she was far gone. She knew it was right. She could feel him, his broad back and shoulders, the graceful sway, the steadiness with which he held her...as if she were the most precious delicate porcelain doll that he wouldn't let anything happen to. She belonged in his arms. She could feel he wasn't indifferent too.

She had to take the initiative.

As they'd rocked to a much slower dance, his breathe hitched in his throat and he hesitated to look at her a bit too long.

That gave it away, he was nervous. Why was he nervous?

Why was Sirius Black, Harry's godfather, the ultimate player, nervous around her...?

.

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thanks to everyone that reviewed :) What do you think should happen next?

[prompt for this chapter: You belong with me" by Taylor Swift, written as part of the Taylor Swift challenge]


	5. Chapter 5

_**5\. 2 am**_ _ **Grimmauld Place**_

 _ **Harry and Ginny's anniversary, after party**_

 _ **.**_

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There was a mix and match of coats and a flurry of Floo powder and pops of apparition as each guest bundled up to leave.

Sirius stood back watching as his guests-well mostly Harry and Ginny's guests-left one by one from his house.

His hands played nervously with a key ring or something or other he held in his hands.

Hermione noticed he had large knuckles and hands when he gripped something. His hands didn't look old but a vein throbbed in them, as if they were working hands and not the hands of an aristocrat who spent 12 years scraping at the stone floors of Azkaban.

He turned to her, as the last person left Grimmauld Place, and she was still standing there in her red dress and heels. Her eyes remained almost stubbornly on him.

"Why aren't you leaving?" he asked her suddenly, a slightly panicked edge in his voice though his face was a mask of perfect calm and unreadable.

"I'm sorry," he corrected himself before she could answer. "That was rude. Do you want to use the Floo instead...?"

She stepped around the couch she'd been leaning against and stepped a bit closer to him. "If it's alright, I'm not actually in a hurry to leave."

"Right."

It was so awkward. You could have cut it with a knife and she contemplated grabbing a pinch of Floo powder and running out of there, pretending she'd never tried to make a move on Harry's godfather. But then he seemed to relax and ease into the prospect of her staying. And his ease, made her feel at ease too.

He dropped into an armchair-one of those ridiculously overstuffed and antique Victorian armchairs. Then with a flick of his wand and wordless magic, he summoned out a bottle of brandy and a shot glass.

The irony of the muggle drink in a wizard home was not lost on her. It was one of the things she liked about him: the little ironies.

He met her warm brown eyes over the shot of brandy as it plunged down his throat and he seemed to shiver.

It was as if he knew and didn't at the same time. As if he knew exactly what she wanted...so what was he avoiding?

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	6. Chapter 6

thanks to guest and Thunderbird06 for reviewing the last chappie ;)

* * *

 ** _6\. Melting_**

* * *

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She didn't know how much longer she could take this oppressing awkwardness, the quietness of not being able to say exactly what you mean.

She practically exhaled as Sirius broke the silence.

"Do you want a drink too?" he asked tentatively, his eyes were darker so that his irises looked like molten silver.

She nodded numbly, filled with the desire to taste a shot of the same hard liquor that had passed his lips. She craned her neck out of nerves, and crossing and uncrossing her knees a bit too many times. Her fingers played a bit too nervously at the edge of her skirt.

She needed something to numb her and she watched in rabid fascination as Sirius used nonverbal magic to gracefully float another glass in the air as the bottle of brandy—seemingly by itself but really under the control of Sirius's silver gaze—poured out a stream of the dark rich liquid.

Sirius smirked as he levitated the filled glass through the air and into her outstretched hand.

"Cheers."

It burned her nostrils and throat as she took a large gulp. Then two more gulps, when she felt Sirius's silver gaze on her and she needed an excuse to have a heated face.

"You know it's a rare colour," she said awkwardly and all of a sudden.

"What is?" Sirius's brows raised, completely unaware of what she meant.

"Your eyes, I meant." She stumbled over her words and pointed at his face with the brandy-glass still in her hand.

He laughed. Grimly. As if he didn't like being reminded.

"I have my father's eyes," he said finally.

She stood up abruptly, perhaps under the influence of the dark, amber brandy combined with the half a dozen or so butterbeers she drank earlier in the evening.

"I wonder what your father was like."

Sirius massaged a hand in agitation across his brow. "You wouldn't have liked him. He was a very rigid man, Hermione. Set in his ways."

She was standing so close to him and when he looked up he realized she was standing practically near his lap.

"You're set in your ways too _Sirius_." _So damn set. And so damn closed off from her._ "Why is that?"

Her words were spoken quiet and a bit slurred but they were the most truthful words she'd ever said to him and the truth must have hurt him.

What happened next was a blur.

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btw I am also writing a xenophilius lovegood/sirius/hermione time travel love triangle for the OT3 30 day challenge if you like crack-ish 0T3s...or maybe not...


	7. Chapter 7

thanks to thunderbird06, violetbuckbeak and sereniterose for reviewing the last chapter! :)...and I realize this is the first time, I post something racy between hermione and sirius. They've always been my OTP but I don't know, I've always hesitated to write them together, well here goes nothing...and sorry if this story is too angsty XD

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 _ **7\. Stop and Go**_

 _ **"It's all your fault."**_

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What happened next was a blur; fueled by the taste of wet brandy still on her lips and the way his eyes lit up her whole body.

She stumbled or sat down onto his lap, as he sat in that ridiculously fancy armchair, and he jumped up for a moment either in shock or distaste. But then the next moment, her hand had accidentally passed by his crotch and as he moved to grab her hand away from his nether regions and she was stammering some apology...they both looked at each other and then he was kissing her.

She made the first move, but he was kissing her and he completely took over. Her knees bent into the armchair as she straddled him and his hips lifted up to meet hers as her hands went into his hair, and his hands dragged down her lower back and his front pressed against her.

He made some noise, low in his throat, and she bit back a moan herself as she felt the hardened planes of his body rub against hers.

The edges of her short dress were riding up her thighs so that she felt certain he could see her underwear. A lace pink panties she wore just for him, in case.

He swore something, some wizard aristocratic swear word, she'd never heard of. Before pulling slightly back from her. His fingertips resting lightly on her.

"Hermione."

Fuck. She knew that tone. And his hand lowered to grab her by the hips and tuck the dress down a bit.

His silver eyes were impossible to bare with. She couldn't bare to look at him, but she didn't move either. She stayed put, almost stubbornly, still straddling him though it was obvious he wanted to end things.

"I think you've had too much to drink. I'm sorry this ever happened." He pinched at the bridge of his nose as if he were getting a headache or simply ashamed. "I'll take you back to your flat."

Hermione bit the inside of her cheek. She clenched her nails against the inside of her fist and dared to look at his eyes that troubled so much of her sleep. "I am sober. Look at me Sirius, please. I've never thought clearer," she slurred, knowing it was a lie and yet that they were together for a moment was the biggest truth.

But Sirius suddenly became raw with anger, as he pushed himself up from the chair and lifted her off him. "Fuck. How could I have done this with you?" he said aloud in horror, more to himself than her. He was grasping at his own hair, as if he wanted to tear it out.

Hermione felt her eyes prick with tears. "What are you talking about Sirius? We haven't done anything wrong!"

His face was heartbreaking and his voice had faltered to a whisper. "I took advantage of you, can't you see Hermione? You're not sober." Then he swore at himself again.

"I am sober," she lied once more and she realized she was shivering. From fear. Because he was rejecting her again.

"No. You're not, and you have to go." His tone was cold and final.

And she wasn't sober either, was she? She didn't think Sirius was completely sober either. Though he seemed to have more control than her, though his breathe was still laced with firewhiskey.

And damn it, she would remember the taste of his mouth too, like firewhiskey and brandy.

Vaguely, she remembered crying as she left his house through the Floo.

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[Prompt 72: "Please, just look at me." Lucky duck bi-weekly challenge]

Thanks for reading and following :)


	8. Chapter 8

Thank you to mrsmorgan813 and serenite for reviewing the last chapter and thanks to any concrit from the review games :)

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 ** _8\. Preparations_**

 ** _Two Weeks Before_**

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There was a shifting in Grimmauld Place as pieces of furniture and patio chairs were shifted around for the upcoming reunion of the Order members, plus Harry and Ginny's upcoming anniversary. Sirius no longer lived in the house, though he flitted there from time to time, he'd come with Remus to help along in the preparations. He'd been surprised too when he saw Hermione, with Ron, string along patio lights along all the trees. She was such a capable witch and yet she laughed and seemed untroubled by the war, that recently ended, as she helped decorate.

She was tanner and she'd grown her hair out, and there was something indefinably different about her...though he couldn't decide what it was.

He felt distracted by the green checkered dress she wore. It was tight and yet professional and yet...still distracting and god's name, Merlin, he didn't want to be distracted by her. Of all people.

"What do you think of her? Mooney?"

"Think of who?" Remus looked up abruptly from his paper.

"Hermione." Sirius said shortly. "She's done a lot of growing up, hasn't she?"

Sirius was walking in agitation across the room, his hands drilling against his dragon heartstring wand, as if annoyed he couldn't be of more use. Especially when everyone around him was getting more and more capable, including Harry. Harry didn't even really need him anymore.

"She's 20," Remus replied matter of factually. "I suppose she had to grow up at some point."

"Yes, I suppose she did."

"No one can stay young forever," Remus said dryly and his eyes went back to his paper. "Unfortunately, not everybody matures at the same rate..."

"Still," Sirius said. "What do you think really? Her and Ron is that...still something going on?"

Remus suddenly put down his paper altogether, and an edge of scorn entered his voice. "I hope she hasn't caught your eye." Remus looked genuinely troubled.

"Don't be daft," Sirius laughed and he took a large sip of his wine. "Though you're hardly one to criticize, marrying my cousin, your 24 year old wife!"

"Dora's 26 now." Remus reminded him.

"She was 21 or so wasn't she though, when you met her?"

Something like a growl emitted from Remus. "Please don't tell me, you have your eyes on _her_ do you?"

Sirius laughed even louder. "On my cousin? Dora? No, we'd have too much of a laugh to shag. Did I ever tell you she once metamorphmagized as Dumbledore and then tried to come onto me? I thought Dumbledore had lost his mind!" Sirius slapped his friend's knee and a sly grin grew on his face. "I couldn't look Dumbledore in the eye for a whole week without laughing."

Remus began to laugh too. "Yes, my wife is mischievous, not the least of her good traits."

 _"Your wife,"_ Sirius echoed, his grey eyes suddenly dimmer and more distant if not troubled.

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Okay not sure if this chapter is any good, but do you think I should include how or why sirius came back from the veil or does that not really matter? I could just leave the veil part towards the end, since the whole story is going backwards in time...so yes, the very ending will actually be the first scene chronologically

cheers!


	9. Chapter 9

**_thanks for reading..:)_**

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 ** _9\. Earrings_**

 ** _2 days ago_**

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"Are you about finished now?" Ginny asked as Hermione stalled in the change room, looking over her dress.

"Just about," she said and she thought over how she really felt about the deep red, low cut dress.

In the back of her mind, she thought the deep, burgundy red might be, or was, Sirius's favourite colour.

She noticed his childhood room at Grimmauld Place had been decked out in that shade and he still had a keychain of tartan in that shade. With the gold of the chain around her neck, she'd be decked out in Gryffindor gold and dusky red. His colours.

She stepped out of the changeroom and let Ginny's prying eyes fall over the dress.

Hermione wasn't sure why she'd gone shopping with both Ginny and Luna, since they were both so unlike; yet it seemed right to have them both by her side, with Ginny's knowledge of makeup and beauty charms, while the zany blonde was more intuitive.

She let out a breathe, she hadn't even realized she'd been holding, as Ginny nodded her head in approval and smiled widely.

"It's perfect," Ginny squealed and her blue eyes raked up and down over how the deep red fabric clung to her curvy but slender form. "You have to get this one. You look to die for."

Hermione laughed lightly as she pressed her hands over the lace details of the low cut hem. "I've never quite understood that expression. 'To die for' as if it's supposed to be romantic. I don't want anyone dying over me. Quite the opposite actually."

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Don't take things too literally. I'll go ring up the dress with the cashier, and then we'll start picking you out shoes to match," Ginny said eagerly and stomped towards the front of the boutique.

That left her with just Luna who had barely looked at her dress, or any dress, and was off in her own world as usual, probably thinking of nargles rather than what she would wear to the Order's Reunion.

"So what do you think?" she asked Luna, just to break the awkward silence.

"He will like it," Luna said a bit casually.

That caught her off guard.

"Pardon?" Hermione blushed. "Who?" And how did Luna know she had someone special in mind? She tried to look away from Luna's too-knowing blue gaze, and focused instead on the racks of earrings beside them.

"Sirius will," Luna said with ease, as if she'd not revealed anything at all, and her hand casually flipped through the racks of earrings with her.

Hermione turned back to look at the petite blonde. "How did you know that?"

Luna smirked. "You chose his colours," she said and flipped through the earrings rack again before passing a pair to her. "Here, wear these."

They were little silver veil earrings. Like the one in the Department of Mysteries.

Her breath caught a little in her throat, sometimes Luna Lovegood was _too_ intuitive.

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End file.
